History, Culture, and Indigenous Education in the Pacific Islands

Abstract

This chapter reviews the many competing trends and agendas that have shaped educational policy and planning in the Pacific Islands through time. It describes traditional indigenous education, which took place within a village context, instilling in young adults locally-appropriate knowledge including a nuanced understanding of their environment and the skills and knowledge to exploit it. But most Pacific Island peoples were subject to European colonialism for more than a hundred years, during which new educational models advanced European values and orientations at the expense of these indigenous understandings. Building on this historical baseline, the chapter examines two contrasting but ultimately parallel case studies of how educational development unfolded for the Abelam of Papua New Guinea and for Native Hawaiians, underscoring how many contemporary islanders attempt to blend together ancestral values, beliefs, and knowledge with Western and global orientations to achieve fulfilling lives in a changing world. The chapter demonstrates how cultural diversity and sociopolitical organization in the Pacific have shaped both traditional learning and the experience of introduced or imposed education, and argues for multiculturalism and a culturally-responsive pedagogy for the future.